What did you think of Snyder’s State of the State speech?

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45 Comments

  1. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:16 pm | Permalink

    I’m just now starting… I’ve heard from someone, however, that he tells the whole story of what happened in Flint without uttering the phrase “emergency manager.” Is that true? If so, how’s that even possible?

  2. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:18 pm | Permalink

    I’m struck by the enthusiastic applause. I wasn’t expecting that… given how, you know, he sat by and did nothing while an entire city was poisoned.

  3. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:20 pm | Permalink

    And, right as the applause is finally dying down, he thanks the cops and the vets, setting off yet another wave of enthusiastic applause. Brilliant. I’m going to remember that, in case I ever poison a city.

  4. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:24 pm | Permalink

    OK, the Flint stuff starts at the 7:30 mark with Snyder taking responsibility… and then promptly blaming everyone else.

  5. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:24 pm | Permalink

    OK, I like that he’s releasing his emails. Hopefully we get everything.

  6. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:27 pm | Permalink

    It took about 16 months, but apparently he’s super serious about the Flint water crisis now… I’m totally buying it.

  7. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:31 pm | Permalink

    #TimeDelayedToughNerd

  8. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:32 pm | Permalink

    I like what he’s saying, but it doesn’t jive with my memory, as I recall him clearly saying in December that the problem in Flint wasn’t necessarily the water. #DontBlameTheWater #FlintKidsEatLeadPaint

  9. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:38 pm | Permalink

    This speech would have be awesome last April!

  10. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

    Do we really still have wooden pipes in Michigan?

  11. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:41 pm | Permalink

    I like how he transitioned from the Flint problem to the “we still have wooden pipes” problem.

  12. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:50 pm | Permalink

    Now he’s talking about the state of education in Detroit, leaving out the fact that the Emergency Manager he appointed in Flint – the one who was in power when the decision was made to deliver untreated water from the Flint River to people’s homes – is now heading Detroit schools.

  13. c.jason
    Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:50 pm | Permalink

    You scoff, but it *really does* take one tough nerd to poison a city. A lesser nerd might only pepper a school with asbestos or a low income housing project with black mold.

  14. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:54 pm | Permalink

    He used child labor to design the State of the State program!

  15. Jcp2
    Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:55 pm | Permalink

    As it seems that technical incompetence is at the root of the failure to treat the water appropriately, I find it interesting that the Flint water department and the company contracted with helping Flint develop its own water supply, LAN Engineering, has been let off the hook. LAN Engineering has a significant contract for the Karegnondi Water Authority, and has done millions of dollars of work for Flint with regards to its switch from Detroit to Flint River water.

    http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/11/engineer_gets_907000_contract.html

    They have done similar work for other governmental bodies, but the Flint project is not part of their portfolio.

    http://www.lan-inc.com/portfolio

    The company is mentioned briefly in news reports, but gets a free pass, as well as a contract extension.

  16. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:56 pm | Permalink

    I can’t help but wonder how much he would have said about the situation in Flint tonight if this hadn’t become national news.

  17. Posted January 19, 2016 at 10:58 pm | Permalink

    Isn’t unemployment dropping in part because people are leaving Michigan?

  18. Jean Henry
    Posted January 19, 2016 at 11:03 pm | Permalink

    There was a MI radio piece recently — On Politics– that talked about his empathy deficit. Zoe Clark wisely pointed out that he didn’t run on empathy but on competence. If he’s crying, it’s because he screwed up and his competency has been questioned. The idea that any leader who lacks empathy could be competent is questionable.

  19. Tony
    Posted January 19, 2016 at 11:04 pm | Permalink

    You guys do realize there’s a clinical term for a person who lacks the ability to feel real emotions, right? They’re called sociopaths. Apparently, sociopaths are attracted to becoming serial killers or the governor of Michigan.

  20. Posted January 19, 2016 at 11:05 pm | Permalink

    They’ve been talking about the Willow Run thing for a long time. It sounds great, but I won’t believe it until I see them investing the dollars to make it happen.

  21. Peter Larson
    Posted January 19, 2016 at 11:50 pm | Permalink

    My opinion doesn’t matter.

  22. Demetrius
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 6:46 am | Permalink

    I’m glad to see that Snyder is finally pulling out all the stops to help the people of Flint, and that clearly needs to be the focus right now.

    However, if we continue to look at this as an isolated incident (let alone a terrible “accident”) and not as just one extreme example of a more than 40-year long pattern of deliberate neglect of Michigan cities, schools, infrastructure, etc., then we will have missed a critical reality check, and an important opportunity to begin to doing things very differently.

    Michigan is a beautiful state with lots of things going for it – rich farmland, ample forests, abundant fresh water, etc. – but if we want to continue being a place where people want to live, and where young people want to stay and plant roots, we need to make a serious, long-term commitment to *investing* in our municipalities, schools, roads, bridges, water systems, etc.

    For starters, we need to abandon the fantasy that “government can be run like a business;” and that we can somehow “get something for nothing” – that is, that we can have decent services without having the reasonable (progressive) taxation (especially on the wealthy, and on businesses) needed to support them.

    If nothing else, let’s have this be the end of self-inflicted pain from year-after-year budget cuts to cities and school districts, “austerity,” and “emergency managers.”

  23. Peter Larson
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 7:36 am | Permalink

    “we can somehow “get something for nothing” – that is, that we can have decent services without having the reasonable (progressive) taxation (especially on the wealthy, and on businesses) needed to support them.”

    Good luck on that. Both parties love to promise services, but don’t want to pay for them.

    It is my opinion that constantly depending on wealthy people to support everything is a political dead end. Of course, they will use their power to resist. Democrats use their power to resist Republican proposals to introduce European style VAT taxes and national sales taxes that would probably make more political sense in the end.

    Democrats need to stop assuming these assholes will pay for anything. Regular people can pay for this stuff on their own, just like they do in the some of the so-called “other developed countries.”

    That being said, Flint should be a wake up call, though it is unclear to me whether things would have been any different under the elected government. This is still unclear to me.

  24. Demetrius
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 8:01 am | Permalink

    @ Peter

    There was a time in American history, not that long ago, when the wealthy and corporations DID pay a much higher share – even under Republican presidents like Eisenhower. FWIW – this era corresponded with the largest narrowing of income inequality in American history, the birth of the “middle class,” and the implementation of such then-radical ideas as the 40-hour work-week, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, and old-age benefits, etc.

    I’m not saying this will happen again, just that it COULD happen, if people had the historical awareness and political will to force a change in that direction.

    Also, I agree with you that our current “two party” system is a big part of the problem.

  25. Peter Larson
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 8:13 am | Permalink

    Yes, I know, but that era is over.

    America needs to move on from this dream of having disinterested people pay for services. It’s a dead end.

  26. Jim
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 9:22 am | Permalink

    Snyder’s prepared remarks are here:

    http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/01/19/snyder-address-flint-water-shut-offs-tonight/78994522/

  27. Chris Buhalis
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 9:34 am | Permalink

    Flint City Council did not make the decision to use the Flint River as an interim water source. It was made by Emergency Manager Edward Kurtz and implemented by EM Darnell Earley.

    Governor Snyder is deliberately spreading falsehoods to remove himself from responsibility. He lied in his State of the State address.

  28. Jim
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 9:49 am | Permalink

    I agree with Chris–point 1 in Snyder’s timeline may be literally true but is deliberately misleading. Snyder’s timeline also omits that DEQ approved the switch to Flint River water without requiring corrosion controls. A more accurate timeline can be found in this post: http://michiganradio.org/post/reporter-s-notebook-some-state-officials-still-denial-or-misinformed-over-flint-river-decision#stream/0

  29. site admin
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 10:10 am | Permalink

    Here’s one other thing to keep in mind when assigning blame to the Flint City Council.

    This is from last night’s writeup about last Saturday’s interview with Flint mother Lee Anne Walters.

    “Walters said that people who point out that the Flint City Council voted to support the Emergency Manager’s idea to transition away from Detroit water, and have a new pipeline built from Lake Huron, don’t know what they’re talking about. “The City Council had no power” at the time, she said. Furthermore, she says, people who point to that first City Council vote invariably refuse to mention the fact that, in April of 2015, the same City Council members also voted to go back to Detroit water, only to have their vote dismissed by the Snyder-appointed Emergency Manager. [Detroit water wouldn’t be restored until October.]”

  30. General Demetrious
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 10:48 am | Permalink

    Chris Buhalis

    The decision to switch to Flint river water was made by the Flint city council officials, the mayor of Flint, MDEQ, the Genessee County Drain Commission, and the emergency manager for Flint. The signed document at this link clearly and specifically states how the decision to use Flint river water was reached:

    https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/CoF-Water-System-FAQ-1-16-2015.pdf

  31. Karl
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 11:26 am | Permalink

    Something else for your consideration, Demetrius.

    http://imgur.com/H1EOKmZ

  32. Cristina
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 11:45 am | Permalink

    Saving money is more important than the health of your children. You don’t believe if government safety programs. Until – oops! You need the federal government to bail out YOUR butt because you poisoned all the people when you tried to save some money. When will people see the hypocrisy of Republicans?

  33. Jim
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 12:07 pm | Permalink

    General Demetrious, where in the document you link to does it say that the Flint mayor and City Council voted to use Flint River water? What was the date of this vote?

  34. Lynne
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 12:44 pm | Permalink

    I am glad that he is going to be releasing his emails and I appreciated that he made a commitment to fix things. Other than that, I was disappointed that he didn’t actually take responsibility for actions on his part (such as the EMF law he signed after the voters clearly stated that they didn’t want it).

    My hope here is that this ruins him so badly that the next A-hole who thinks it is ok to cut taxes to cut services to the poor thinks again about it.

  35. Eel
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 2:07 pm | Permalink

    He only did one thing wrong. He didn’t ensure that everyone in state government got the memo about how they were going to do more with less, and be as awesome as business people.

  36. Jean Henry
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 3:34 pm | Permalink

    Press release response from the Michigan LCV:
    Too little, too late from Governor Snyder”
    “We sincerely hope that the promises the Governor made tonight represent a turning point in a public health crisis that should never have taken place and has gone on for a shockingly long time. The Governor’s delayed response is ultimately too little too late for the parents and children of Flint who will feel the effects of the months of inaction by this administration for many years to come. While the measures announced tonight are undoubtedly steps in the right direction, the Governor fell short of providing a comprehensive plan to provide the clean water that Michiganders deserve.”

  37. Demetrius
    Posted January 20, 2016 at 3:36 pm | Permalink

    @ Peter

    When you say “that era is over,” do you mean that poor and working people should just resign themselves to working harder/paying for roads, bridges, water systems, schools, etc., that the wealthy and corporations depend upon to gain an ever-greater share of wealth and control in our society?

    When you say we need to “move on from this dream of having disinterested people pay for services” are you suggesting that the wealthy/corporations who used to pay for these things ever did so out of the goodness of their hearts … rather than because they were forced to by laws and regulations that were demanded by the majority (99%)?

  38. Jim
    Posted January 21, 2016 at 1:21 pm | Permalink

    Another good piece on the timeline and responsibility:
    http://bridgemi.com/2016/01/who-approved-switch-to-flint-river-states-answers-draw-fouls/

    The remarks by Rep. Pscholka quoted here make clear that the debate over responsibility for the Flint water crisis isn’t just a matter of scoring political points. Pscholka is trying to blame Flint officials so that the state isn’t obligated to pay to fix the problem.

  39. Bob
    Posted January 21, 2016 at 4:36 pm | Permalink

    The Peter Larson era is also over.

  40. Peter Larson
    Posted January 21, 2016 at 5:04 pm | Permalink

    Was there an era?

    Good. Pete Larson was unnecessary filth. A stain on this world. A loser. A tool (whatever that means).

    I hated that guy.

  41. Peter Larson
    Posted January 21, 2016 at 5:12 pm | Permalink

    I wish him to be gone forever. His comments are useless. His existence is useless. There is nothing but darkness. A road which ends. Eternal night will be all there is.

    I hate that he was born. Useless filth.

    Bob will reign supreme.

  42. Posted January 21, 2016 at 7:19 pm | Permalink

    Pete is just setting everyone up for a huge third act, full of awesomeness and redemption.

  43. Peter Larson
    Posted January 22, 2016 at 1:31 am | Permalink

    With Bob at the helm.

    The era of Bob is upon us.

  44. Jean Henry
    Posted January 22, 2016 at 8:37 am | Permalink

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WC0TW_0qc

  45. bitter clinger
    Posted January 22, 2016 at 9:42 am | Permalink

    I prefer my Bob to be more godlike.

    http://www.subgenius.com/

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